The present invention relates generally to ultrasound systems. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method and system for monitoring an ultrasound system and controlling the power supplied to a transducer of the ultrasound system.
Ultrasound systems typically include a probe with a transducer that generates acoustic waves and receives the echoes of these waves, for example, as reflected by part of a human body being examined. Further, the ultrasound systems typically include a processor that performs processing of the received scanning information and controls the operation of the probe transducer (e.g., controls activation of elements of the transducer). The amplitude, frequency and duration of the pulses emitted from the probe transducer may be changed using transducer pulse controls. A display provides the image from the ultrasound information processed by the processor. A keyboard or other user input or interface may be provided to input data or control commands data.
The transducer is used to perform diagnosis of, for example, a body part of a patient. However, when the transducer is not used for performing diagnosis for a certain period, but is still powered, the ultrasound system becomes idle and the transducer “scans in the air” (e.g., scanning, but not acquiring images because no patient is present). In order to reduce or avoid scanning in the air, ultrasound systems currently include an automatic time out or freeze feature that halts the scanning and turns off power to the transducer if no user inputs (e.g. keyboard events) have been detected for a predefined time period. The functionality of this feature assumes that the user will be actively interfacing with the ultrasound system. As a consequence, even if the user is performing diagnosis using the probe, but has not performed any keyboard operations for the predefined time period, this feature may freeze the ultrasound system during the diagnosis. Therefore, the users sometimes disable this feature to avoid inconvenience, due to unwanted freezing of the ultrasound system.
When the time-out or freeze feature is not enabled, there exists a possibility that the system will continue scanning for hours, even at a time when there is no diagnosis being performed and the transducer is scanning in the air. This may result in more rapid wear on the system components, such as the probe, transmit-receive circuitry, etc. This may result in increased costs, such as, for example, maintenance and replacements costs. Additionally, scanning in the air may cause the temperature of the probe to exceed acceptable or required levels (e.g., exceed compliance requirements). Thus, when the automatic time-out or freeze feature is disabled or not present, the probe may be left scanning in the air, which may lead to an increase in transducer lens temperature. In such a case, it may not be suitable to use the transducer for performing the diagnosis because of non-compliance with mandated guidelines and/or possibility of causing harm to a patient.
Thus, known ultrasound systems may not adequately provide for powering off a probe when the probe is scanning with no images being acquired (e.g., probe on and no patient being scanned).